Thursday, June 18, 2009

I must say, I'm surprised Andy Phillips hasn't signed with a new team yet. I wouldn't expect him to opt out of his contract with the White Sox unless he had another offer lined up. He has to know that this market is pretty terrible for veteran players like him. And if he didn't know it, his agent surely did.

Unless he just doesn't want to play. Maybe he's thinking of retirement, or just wants to take the rest of the season off. He's got a new baby at home and all.

Ugly, ugly series for the Yankees against the Nationals. They just aren't playing well. The Nationals are the worst team in baseball, and they came to Yankee Stadium and took two out of three. The Yanks were lucky they weren't swept. They won the first game thanks to truly terrible defense by CFer Elijah Dukes. He was so bad Corey Patterson, just called up from AAA, took over CF in the next two games.

Brett Gardner nearly brained himself tonight. He made a beautiful catch in CF, using his fantastic speed to track down a ball that seemed uncatchable. Then he crashed against the fence...which happened to be the plexiglas bullpen window. The back of his head slammed against the window, and he went down like a ton of bricks. It was pretty scary. He held onto the ball, though.

They ended up taking him off on the cart. He spoke to the media after the game, and seemed to be okay. He thinks he'll be able to play tomorrow. I'm kind of surprised they didn't want to do an MRI or something. He really seemed dazed when he hit that window. I thought he had a concussion for sure.

Gardner's been playing really well lately, after a rough start. I hope this doesn't throw him off.

Andy wasn't released. He had an opt-out clause in his contract. If he was released, it would say so in the transaction report. It doesn't. It says he filed for free agency.

From what I've read in minor league blogs...Andy's contract required him to file for free agency by June 15 if he was going do to it. Apparently, several players had that deadline. Most chose to not to file. Andy opted for free agency. It was his own choice.